Movielink signs download-to-burn deal

Service to use Sonic Solutions' DVD-on-Demand technology

By Paul Sweeting -- Video Business, 7/16/2006

JULY 17 | The movement toward allowing consumers to burn their own DVD copies of downloaded movies is poised to take a major leap forward.

On Monday, software maker Sonic Solutions and download service Movielink are set to unveil a cross licensing agreement for technology that will enable consumers to download movies and burn them onto discs that will play in most set-top DVD players.

Although the announcement of the deal will not include firm commitments from program suppliers to make their titles available for home burning, Movielink is owned by five major studios, and it’s unlikely they would permit the deal with Sonic to go ahead unless plans for a download-and-burn option were well advanced.

“We’re anticipating an industry resolution to establish rules for converting secure Internet-delivered Movielink downloads into a secure format compatible with DVD players in the market today,” Movielink CEO Jim Ramo said in a statement. “Our relationship with Sonic is a critical advancement and will enhance the value of our service, along with the capabilities already available, by allowing customers to burn and playback movies on standard DVD players.”

Movielink already offers a download-to-own service, but it has not proved popular without the ability to burn the movies onto discs for playback on set-top DVD players.

Under the new agreement, Movielink has licensed Sonic’s DVD-on-Demand technology, which converts downloaded movies into a format that can be read by standard DVD players and burns the converted file to a disc, along with digital rights management software to protect against piracy.

Most DVD players can only read discs encoded in MPEG-2, while download services such as Movielink typically use more efficient codecs, such as Microsoft’s Windows Media Video, to reduce download times.

For its part, Sonic will bundle Movielink’s download manager software and interface with its Roxio-brand CinePlayer software package.

CinePlayer is sold at retail but also is licensed to PC makers and bundled into millions of new PCs and laptops each year.

“This is really a tremendous opportunity for Movielink to put its client application into millions of consumers’ hands as part of a trusted brand they already know,” Sonic’s executive VP of strategy Mark Ely said.

Although the Movielink/Sonic deal puts critical pieces of a download-to-burn model in place, several important details remain to be worked out before major studio product is likely to become available for burning.

For home-burned discs to be compatible with all set-top DVD players, for instance, the industry would have to adopt the same CSS copy-protection system used on commercially manufactured discs.

Inter-industry talks aimed at extending CSS to downloaded movies, however, have dragged on for months, as the studios have pressed hardware and PC makers into incorporating a variety of additional security measures into new DVD players as the price of a deal on burning using CSS.

Recently, however, the studios have softened their stance, according to sources familiar with the discussions, raising hopes that a deal could be reached before the end of this year.

The chairmanship of those inter-industry talks recently passed to Sonic senior VP and general manager of its advanced technology group, Jim Taylor.

Even if a deal cannot be reached soon on CSS, the studios are preparing other copy-protection schemes that would be compatible with most set-top players, according to Ely.

“The studios have spent a fair amount of time evaluating a lot of alternatives to CSS,” Ely said. “I think it’s fair to say what we’ll see is a variety of different solutions being tested. You could have CSS in conjunction with some kind of anti-ripping software, or CSS alone, or an anti-ripping system alone.”

The Sonic software is designed to work with whatever DRM system content owners choose to use for home-burned discs.

“If the CSS amendment is passed, I’m sure that’s what the studios want to do, and we’re ready to do that,” Ely said. “But if it’s not, we can deal with other solutions. We just want to help the studios come up with a solution they’re comfortable with.”

Another major issue to be resolved is the reaction from retailers likely to be upset at facing direct-to-consumer competition.

Although studios are known to have had conversations with major DVD retailers, including Wal-Mart, about an in-store burning of discs, no firm plans have been announced.

That too could be changing soon, however, according to Sonic officials.

“We’ve been working for several years with a lot of people to establish the infrastructure for a DVD-on-demand business,” Sonic’s communications director Chris Taylor said. “We’re putting the pieces in place for home users as well as for retail kiosks and enterprise solutions. This is an important milestone for us, but there will be others as well.”